


a place to forget about life for awhile

by orphan_account



Category: GOT7, SEVENTEEN (Band), 방탄소년단 | Bangtan Boys | BTS
Genre: Alternate Universe - Mental Institution, Angst, Anorexia, Bipolar Disorder, Borderline Personality Disorder, Bulimia, Depression, Eating Disorders, Insomnia, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, References to Addiction, References to Drugs, Schizophrenia, Smoking, Social Anxiety, a lot of people are manipulative, and everyone smokes too much, just a story about bambam spending his time in a mental hospital
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-31
Updated: 2017-09-02
Packaged: 2018-12-22 05:54:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11961081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: bambam ends up in the mental hospital after one too many days of starving himself.





	1. a blues to comfort the dead

**Author's Note:**

> disclaimer: okay, this fic isn't complete bullshit, because i have dealt (still deal) with anorexia, bulimia, and depression in the past, and i've also been to a mental hospital twice for two weeks at a time.
> 
> however, about the mental disorders i don't have a lot of/any experience with, i'll try to do as much research as possible -- things like bpd, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, ptsd, etc.  
> though if i do make a mistake, please feel free to correct me.
> 
> i hope we can all remember that this is all fiction

the hospital smells like disinfectant spray and stale food. bambam sits on the edge of his bed, legs hanging off as he waits for the doctor to return. the lights are fluorescent, hurt his eyes, and he can hear his mother on the chair in the corner, trying to muffle her sobs. she doesn’t try hard enough and he can feel words begin to pile in his throat, words to make her feel better, but he’ll never say any of them.

the doctor is an older lady with greying hair pinned high into a bun and laugh lines creased into her face. she sits down on a chair next to his mother and he turns to face her.

“kunpimook bhuwakul,” she begins, and he cuts her off.

“call me bambam.”

“bambam,” she says, the name sounding foreign on her tongue, “bambam. okay. you’ve been starving yourself for how long now?”

he bites his lip and spits out an answer, “six months.” it’s been a year.

“have you received professional help before?”

“no.”

“would you like to?”

“what’s that supposed to mean?”

she sighs, setting her clipboard down and folding her hands. “we have a ward here in seoul, around twenty minutes from this hospital. i would like to admit you.”

he turns his head up, stares at the blinding light for a few seconds. when he looks back at her, he sees spots dancing in his vision. the iv taped to his arm suddenly seems a lot heavier.

“i don’t know.” he’s being honest — he really doesn’t know. he knows that _ward_ is a euphemism for _mental asylum,_ knows that his cousin had been admitted to one the past autumn. but he hasn’t ever thought of whether or not _he_ would like to go, hasn’t ever thought that it would be necessary.

“i think you should go,” his mother speaks up, her voice sounding hoarse. bambam flicks his gaze to her, making eye contact momentarily before continuing to take in her appearance. her hair is a dark brown, a mane tumbling down her shoulders. her eyes are bloodshot from the tears, her hands shaking slightly, the wrinkles in her face appearing more prominent. she looks old, worn — bambam’s never seen her like this before.

“mum,” he tries, but she holds her hand up, still shaking.

“no, kunpimook,” she says, eyes pained, “i think you should go. you need help.”

 _you need help._ the words echo through his head and he takes a deep breath, wondering when it had got to this, when it had gone this far. it had started as excuses and sucking his stomach in and dancing for one hour extra a day — but this, _this_ is something more than that. he feels faint.

“okay,” the doctor says, nodding her head, “bambam, i know you might not want to go, but because you’re underaged your mother’s opinion is the most important…”

her voice fades off in his head, a monotonous hum in the background of his thoughts. the past few hours flash by his mind in a haze, a haze of sitting in school and feeling the desk hit his head when he collapsed, a haze of waking up on a stretcher in an ambulance, a paramedic asking him questions, questions, and more questions.

he doesn’t hear the rest of her speech before his vision goes black and he falls back onto the bed, vaguely feeling the iv in his arm go deeper, sending a sharp pain through his body.

/

he wakes up in another white room, though this one doesn’t smell as strongly of disinfectant. he blinks once, twice, before rolling over onto his side. the iv is gone from his arm, instead replaced by a thick bandage, and he can see a water bottle sitting on the small desk next to him. he takes a big gulp from it.

his legs feel weak underneath his body when he gets up, feel like they’ll collapse any second. he’s dressed in soft blue trousers and a white t-shirt — when he looks in a full-length mirror attached to a closet door, covered in a thick layer of plastic, he can see how baggy they look on his frame, how they hang off of his bones like leaves on a tree. his mouth feels dry.

there’s a band on his wrist, like one you would get from a locker in a swimming hall. it says his name and a mess of numbers, all jumbled together with some letters squished between. his eyebrows furrow and he snaps it noisily against his wrist, leaving an angry red line behind.

the door is heavy when he opens it, and he walks into a white hallway. there are a few chairs pushed in the spaces between doors, and two old landline telephones sitting at the end. he turns the other way and walks shakily, each step feeling like it takes ten thousand seconds. another white room.

this one has people, though — people milling around, all dressed in the same soft blue trousers and white t-shirts. he can see two people sitting at a table, drinking coffee out of styrofoam cups as they watch the others; nurses. the badges clipped to their shirts say it all.

one of them stands up when he spots him, smiling easily and moving to shake bambam’s hand. “kunpimook!” he says. “i’m glad you’re awake — welcome to the ward! my name is choi seungcheol, i’m one of the nurses here at honeydew.”

 _honeydew._ what a stupid name for a mental hospital.

he forces a smile onto his face, stretching it a bit too far while he shakes seungcheol’s hand. “call me bambam.”

“bambam, of course,” seungcheol says, before gesturing to a slightly shorter man sitting in an armchair, legs propped up on the stool while he idly reads a magazine. “jackson, you can show bambam around, can’t you?”

 _jackson_ snaps the magazine down a bit too quickly, plastering a smile onto his face and swinging himself up. “of course!” he loops arms with bambam, ignoring seungcheol when he starts to go off about _not touching other patients._ “welcome to honeydew, bambam, the best place for your mental health to get better!”

he drags bambam away after that, down the hall and towards another room. they enter a dining room, tens of wooden tables set up with plastic chairs. “this is the dining hall,” jackson says, sweeping his free arm around, “it’s where we eat, obviously. the room you were just in was the living room — that’s where most of us are during the day. and then this —“ he drags bambam over to a door at the end of the dining hall, pushing it open, “— is the balcony. if you manage to snag a cigarette from someone, you can smoke it here,” he flashes bambam a smile, “but i wouldn’t want a little thing like you to get lung cancer so soon.”

the _so soon_ echoes through bambam’s head.

“if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask me,” jackson says, leaning against the railing and pulling a cigarette out of his trousers’ pocket. he digs one match out of the same pocket, reaching it up and yanking it down between his teeth. a flame appears on the end of it and bambam blinks, not knowing that was possible — jackson lights the cigarette and turns to him with a blinding grin, “so what’re you here for, anyway? i’d say anorexia but i don’t want to jump to conclusions. you could just be a junkie.”

bambam suddenly feels self-conscious, crossing his arms over his stomach and squeezing. “you’re right, anorexia,” he says quietly, gesturing to the cigarette, “may i?”

jackson raises his eyebrows but hands it over, “i take back what i said earlier. should’ve known you smoked — all you anorexics do.”

“appetite suppressant,” bambam says offhandedly, taking a long drag and blowing it out in small circles, “how’d you know i have an eating disorder?”

jackson takes the cigarette back, taking a puff. he breathes out a long, spindly line and says, “you’re so skinny — it’s kind of obvious.”

bambam looks down at his body, hidden by the baggy trousers and shirt. he can feel the fat on his stomach, on his thighs, on his forearms, but doesn’t say anything to argue with jackson. logically, he knows he's thin. logically, he knows he should eat. but logic is something from his past, something that eludes him in the present day.

“what’re you here for?” bambam asks after a minute, taking the cigarette with two fingers and inhaling. “or is that too intrusive?”

“nah, it’s not.” jackson flashes him the same, blinding grin. it seems a bit too rehearsed to be real, like he stands in front of the mirror and practises it everyday — bambam feels like he’s watching an actor on broadway. “i’ve got a whole stack of mental disorders up my sleeve. stopped paying attention after the doctor diagnosed the third one.” he laughs a bit too loudly and takes his cigarette back, flicking the end and watching the ashes fall down onto the road below. he takes a long drag. “just kidding. i’m a schizo — see things, hear voices, the whole shebang. but the meds help calm it down.” suddenly, he’s a lot more somber, face scrunching up so that his eyebrows are knitted together. “it’s not as romantic as the movies make it out to seem, you know. just a lot of noises all the time, and a lot of suicidal ideation. though i suppose you’d know all about romanticism in movies,” the grin is back, “seeing as though you’re an anorexic. you guys got fucked up portrayal in hollywood.”

“tell me about it,” bambam says, looking at jackson with a thoughtful expression. they stay like that for awhile, in a momentary silence, each studying the other’s face. jackson reaches the end of the cigarette out and places it between bambam’s lips.

“i should be going,” he says, stretching his arms, “meet me out here tonight — i’ll get you another cancer stick, we can smoke together.” another easygoing smile, and then he’s gone, the glass door sliding shut behind him.

a strange man.

bambam stands in silence, puffing the cigarette, loosely exhaling. honeydew is in the middle of nowhere, it seems — all he can see is forest and more forest in the distance. there’s wire mesh a metre or so in front of the railing that comes down to go underneath the balcony. if one were to jump, they’d be caught in it, trapped like a fish in a net.

he burns the cigarette out in an ash tray and quietly slides open the door, walking back into the dining room. it’s still empty, the plastic chairs unoccupied. it does smell vaguely of disinfectant, like hand sanitiser and chloride, but also like flowers. real flowers, like the ones you find in fields or gardens — bambam likes it.

quietly, he makes his way to the living room, passing a limping man on his way. he’s tall and thin, with a long face and black hair. neither of them make eye contact as they walk past each other.

he finds a worn armchair in the corner of the living room, further away from the other patients. they’re all playing cards or watching tv — bambam finds solace in a book that’s strewn on the coffee table.

an hour passes, or maybe more, and seungcheol is calling them for supper. bambam’s stomach growls but he frowns, the thought of food making him feel ill. seungcheol comes up to him and says with a gentle voice, “c’mon, bambam, we’re going to go eat.”

“don’t feel like it,” he says, curling back into the armchair.

seungcheol sighs, obviously expecting this. bambam feels like a petulant child when the older man says, “you don’t have to eat anything, just come to the dining room. you can socialise at least, and have some water.” there’s a few moments before he says, “just know that the longer you don’t eat, the longer your treatment here will be. for you, eating is the key to success, the key to get out of here. keep that in mind.”

and then he’s gone, disappearing down the hallway, leaving bambam in his wake with wide eyes. he carefully gets up, unfolding his legs from underneath him and beginning to teeter down the hallway, becoming lost in a sea of other patients. most drag their feet, frowns painted onto their faces — others talk animatedly, waving their arms around. bambam thinks that they all look sick.

he takes an apple on his tray and a big cup of water. most of the seats are already occupied, but as he begins to make his way to the only empty table, a loud voice sounds through the room, “bambam! over here!”

his eyes look up and he sees jackson sitting, far too much food for one man sitting on his tray. bambam blinks and slowly walks over, sliding next to the other man.

“everyone, this is bambam,” jackson says, gesturing to the younger man, “bambam, this is everyone.”

bambam looks around at the others — there’s eight of them, two sitting at the same table as him and jackson and the other six squished against the table that’s pushed against theirs. the one sitting across from jackson has bleach blond hair and a permanent frown, porcelain skin and a small build. bambam can see his tiny arms, stemming from the sleeves of the t-shirt. envy heats his soul as he takes a sip of water.

“that’s yoongi,” jackson says, gesturing to the small man, “he’s too apathetic for his own good and is constantly writing depressing-ass poetry.”

“welcome to the ward,” yoongi says in a monotonous, dead tone. bambam winces.

“and that over there is yugyeom, our very own baby.” jackson is now gesturing to the man, _teenager?,_ next to yoongi that doesn't look much younger than bambam. he has a strong jaw and jet black hair that forms a sort of bowl, fringe falling over his forehead. he looks up briefly when his name is mentioned and offers a small smile to bambam before continuing to eat his food silently. bambam notices that his arms are shaking. “hasn’t said a word since he got here. doctors say he’s a selective mute.”

“then that’s mark, you guys are twins.” jackson laughs, the too-loud one that rings through bambam’s ears. “only eating disorders in this whole place. except markie here has bulimia, and you’re anorexia, right?”

bambam nods silently, making eye contact with mark. he’s a lean man, tall with a long, hollowing face. his hair is silver and brought up into a quiff, eyes dark. bambam’s eyes move down to look at his body, pushed up against the table — thin arms, a thin stomach. when he looks back up at mark’s face, he sees that the other man’s eyes are moving up and down bambam’s body. go figure. they make eye contact again and nod slightly to each other, forcing smiles.

“jesus, why is nobody talking?” jackson says, sounding exasperated as he throws his hands up. “where the fuck is the conversation?”

“jackson here talks too much,” the man sitting on the other side of bambam says. he turns his head to the left, looking at him with a tilted head. it’s the man from earlier, the one with the limp and long face. he offers a smile to bambam. “i’m jinyoung — welcome to the ward. this place is hell.”

“you’re one to fucking talk, jinyoung,” jackson snaps, and bambam feels like he’s trapped between two wolves when jinyoung bares his teeth, stretching his lips up into a sick smile. “remember yesterday? you wouldn’t fucking shut up.”

“you’re the one that broke the goddamn computer, jackson,” jinyoung says, eyes dark, “all because you jacked off too goddamn hard, huh?”

jackson picks up his apple and plays with it, rolling it around in his hand. “you know what, you call me the only dick here, jinyoung, but i think you might be a really close second.” and with that, he hurls the apple at the other man’s head.

it flies past bambam, brushing against his cheek before he hears a loud groan. he feels thin fingers wrap around his forearm and drag him up as jinyoung and jackson begin to yell, voices becoming louder, louder. the same thin fingers wrap around yugyeom’s forearm, and the two are being pulled out, into the hallway.

bambam puts a face to the fingers when he looks up — it’s mark, the bulimic. bambam bites his lip as he stares at the other man’s body, so thin, so fragile. he’s brought out of his thoughts when yugyeom slides down onto the wall behind him, breaking down into sobs; mark immediately kneels down, comforting the younger one.

“can you get a nurse?” he asks, his voice soft when he looks up, one hand on the yugyeom’s shoulder. “please. there should be one in the nurse’s office, it’s right before the living room.”

he stands for a few minutes and watches the scene in front of him. he can hear jackson and jinyoung screaming, can hear all the patients being rushed out of the dining room as nurses run in — but the scene of yugyeom and mark, so soft amidst the chaos, is oddly soothing, despite yugyeom’s broken sobs.

his legs run to find a nurse before his mind can fully comprehend the words mark had told him. the nurse is a man with tanned skin and platinum hair. a name-tag hangs loosely from his shirt, _kim namjoon._

he has dimples when he smiles and says, “what can i help you with?”

“u-uh,” bambam stutters, “mark and … and yugyeom. in the hallway. help?”

namjoon is gone in a millisecond, leaving bambam alone in the office. most of the patients have drifted off to their own rooms, so when he walks back to the hallway, all he sees is yugyeom gently being lifted by namjoon, and mark watching them go. he can’t hear jinyoung’s shouts, nor jackson’s, and wonders what happened to them.

mark comes up and squeezes his arm, a worn smile coming onto his face, “don’t worry about jinyoung or jackson, they do that all the time. and don’t worry about yugyeom, either — he’s just sensitive.” he sighs. “welcome to the ward. wanna watch tv after i go throw up the apple i just ate?”


	2. peroxide smiles and razor hips

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bambam's thought process is really fucked up in this  
> he's just really sick

bambam goes to bed at ten, just after lights out, but wakes up at two to knocking on his door. it’s loud, each rap calculated, and he pushes the covers off of his body. moving to unlock the door, it creaks open with caution; he exhales in relief— it’s only jackson, two cigarettes held between his fingers as he raises his eyebrows.

“you told me you’d come share a cancer stick with me,” he reminds, and bambam laughs slightly.

“i forgot.”

“promise not to forget about me again, bambam,” jackson says, grasping his wrist and dragging him out to the balcony, “it gets lonely out here — forgetting leads to insanity, on both sides.”

“aren’t we all already insane?”

“we are. but there’s a certain kind of insanity loneliness brings that no other mental disorder can even fathom.” jackson grins his peroxide grin and lights another match with his teeth, bringing the flame up to the two cigarettes. he hands one to bambam and leans his back against the railing, puffing away. “sorry about me and jinyoung earlier. that guy’s a real sicko, i tell you — he just pisses me off.”

“he didn’t seem that bad,” bambam says. his eyebrows furrow and he leans onto his side, taking a deep drag and blowing the smoke into jackson’s face. jackson turns his head, making eye contact with the younger man.

“you say that now, bambam, but you’ll think completely differently by the time you leave honeydew,” he says. his face has gone somber, like it had the last time they’d been on the balcony, and the light dies a little in his eyes. “don’t get caught up with jinyoung — hang out with mark, with yugyeom, yoongi, jungkook, hoseok, jimin, taehyung, youngjae, _whoever,_ just don’t hang with jinyoung. he’ll make you question things that you don’t want to question.”

bambam ignores the fact that he doesn’t know half of the people jackson had just mentioned and nods like he understands. he doesn’t, though — a voice in his head tells him that all the words tumbling from jackson’s mouth are just a paranoid man’s thoughts. he almost believes it.

jackson nods back, the smile coming back to his face easily. “so, what did you think about your first day otherwise?”

/

jinyoung isn’t at breakfast the next day, nor is yugyeom. jackson introduces bambam to the rest of who he calls _everyone,_ despite the fact there are at least thirty more patients in the hospital.

the first one is named jungkook — he’s muscular, with a square face and heavy eyebrows. dimples appear in his cheeks when he smiles, which is often. he’s not as talkative as jackson, but he’s in a good mood, hands waving around in an attempt to express the emotion he feels inside. bambam finds it vaguely endearing.

hoseok has a bony face and black hair and walks with legs that threaten to collapse at any second. jackson whispers something about heroin and depression in bambam’s ear and he understands. depression and drug addiction go hand-in-hand.

dainty fingers and stick-thin wrists, sharp cheekbones and sunken collarbones — these are the first things that bambam notices when jackson introduces jimin. bambam calculates in his head, realises jackson had told him the previous day that mark and him are the only ones with eating disorders. a feeling of jealousy roots itself in his heart, vines stemming from it and wrapping around the organ, squeezing so hard he feels like it will explode — how come a pretty doll like jimin doesn’t have an eating disorder, but someone with a body that could fit the pacific ocean like bambam does?

unfair.

jackson whispers in his ear to watch out for jimin. bambam’s too starstruck by the older male’s body to take any meaning from the words.

then there’s youngjae, who stares at all of them with sunken eyes the entire meal. he doesn’t say anything, doesn’t need to, for jackson speaks of hallucinations that stem from insomnia, insomnia that stems from depression, and depression that stems from past trauma. youngjae looks like he’s not paying attention but he nods, small and hardly noticeable. bambam understands.

breakfast ends and they have a thirty minute break before the first group therapy session of the day. bambam settles on the couch and watches morning cartoons, yoongi sinking down next to him and hoseok sinking down next to yoongi. he listens idly to their conversation.

“withdrawals?”

“yeah.”

“sucks. ex-coke addict.” a bitter laugh. “best fucking years of my life.”

more bitter laughter.

bambam swallows, throat feeling dry, and tries to focus on the animated characters jumping across the screen.

/

the first time that bambam talks to jimin is that evening when they’re the only ones left in the living room besides namjoon the nurse, who sits and watches over them with a cup of tea.

“would you like to come get a glass of water with me?” are the first words that come out of jimin’s mouth, polite with a fixed smile on his face. bambam furrows his eyebrows.

“sure.”

they disappear into the hallway, bambam heading towards the kitchen but jimin heading somewhere else. he walks past the kitchen door, his bony hips moving rhythmically as he walks. bambam is entranced.

to the younger man’s surprise, jimin slides open bambam’s bedroom door. he doesn’t have time to question anything before the door has been shut and he’s been pinned to the bed, cherry lips sucking his neck, leaving behind marks that will stain his skin for days.

they lie in bed afterwards, neither able to produce much body heat, so they bury themselves beneath piles of cotton blankets.

“you have a nice dick,” jimin says. bambam laughs in response.

/

he wakes up the next morning in an empty bed with soiled sheets. lips twisting into a frown, he goes to take a shower, cleaning the come off his body before washing his hair. he feels dirtier than he usually does, dirtier than he does after a binge.

he goes to the living room — it’s five in the morning, too early for breakfast but patients still mill around. jackson is sitting on the couch, talking to mark and bambam finds his place between the two of them, arguing over whether chinese or american hip-hop is better.

bambam says, “thai hip-hop is better.”

mark and jackson take his opinion into consideration and continue to bicker after that, bambam easily listening to their conversation, a hum in the background of his busy thoughts. he thinks of the previous night, of how nice jimin’s hipbones had felt in his hands, of how nice it had been to see the ribs pop out of his concave stomach — but a sinking realisation settles onto him when he realises that he’d much rather see himself with that body than jimin, how he’d much rather see jimin with abs and thighs rather than ribs and sticks.

whatever.

“what’s got you all bothered?” jackson asks in his sing-song voice, poking bambam’s cheek with his pointer finger. seungcheol squawks something about personal space from the corner. jackson ignores him.

“it’s nothing,” bambam says, burying himself into the cushions, “just something about someone.”

“did jinyoung say something?” mark asks, a worried look on his face. “because that guy is no good, you should really know that.”

bambam sends him a confused look, eyebrows furrowed. “i haven’t even talked with jinyoung before, i have no idea what you’re talking about. but it’s just jimin.”

“jimin?” mark’s eyebrows disappear into his hairline. bambam realises that he likes mark’s voice, likes how soft it is. it’s comforting, like a mother’s lullaby to her child.

“don’t tell me he fucked you,” jackson says, a glint coming to his eyes.

bambam looks down. jackson laughs his hyena laugh.

“you fucked jimin,” jackson says between laughs, continuing to cackle afterwards, “oh my god, you got roped into his schemes, i can’t believe—“

mark notices bambam’s confused look and sends him a sympathetic smile. “jimin’s a nymphomaniac.”

“oh.” a pause; bambam feels used. “isn’t that term just used for females?”

“well, have you seen his body?” jackson asks, grinning at bambam. “it’s like a little girl’s — though i bet you find that attractive, don’t you?”

bambam flushes and sinks further and further down into the couch. mark tells jackson to not be so insensitive.


	3. crashed aeroplanes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i realise no one is reading this story but it comes so easily to me so i don't care

yoongi and hoseok and bambam fall into a routine every night. they all go out onto the balcony, sit on the plastic lawn chairs and puff their years away, talk about life and who they are.

“i didn’t ask to be born,” yoongi says, laughing, but it holds no emotion, “i think that’s the cruellest joke god ever played on me.” he takes another drag from his cigarette.

“i used to be hopeful,” hoseok says, his arms shaky as he brings the cigarette to his lips, inhaling deeply and exhaling a cloud of opaque smoke, “a long, long time ago — used to believe in good in this world and all that shit. now i’m not too sure.”

they both turn expectantly to bambam after that, look at him with two pairs of dim eyes. bambam swallows smoke and coughs before saying, “i feel like my soul is a crashed aeroplane, fallen and stranded in the middle of an ocean. all the radios are broken and the passengers are dead, and the only thing the aeroplane can do is sink down, down, down to the bottom of the sea.”

the two other men laugh, hollow and broken. yoongi says, “i fucking understand that shit, man.”

/

jungkook is nice and seeks him out after dinner, when bambam is still sitting in the dining room and picking at an orange slice.

“did you know we’re the same age?” he asks, tilting his head to the left and staring at bambam with puppy eyes. “we’re both ninety-seven. so is yugyeom.”

“oh,” bambam says, blinking, “that’s cool.”

“yeah, it is,” jungkook says, grinning and sitting down across from the other teenager. “you’re here for an eating disorder, right?”

“anorexia nervosa,” bambam says offhandedly, peeling layer off of layer from his orange, “it’s shit.”

“i can imagine,” jungkook says, lips pulling into a frown. his fingers drum against the table with a sort of rhythm. “you know jimin, right?”

bambam looks up with lost eyes when he says that. he hasn’t spoken a word to jimin after they had fucked, only exchanged momentary glances in group therapy — he knows the sex had been consensual, but a little part of him feels used, used, used, teased by the doll’s body until he had found its dick inside of him.

“yeah, i do,” he says.

“we used to know each other,” jungkook says, one hand continuing to drum its fingers on the table while the other reaches for bambam’s glass of water. he takes a long drink before continuing. “both lived in busan, went to the same dance school.” both of his hands continue to drum their fingers on the table now, an anxious beat sounding out. “i watched him fall down this … rabbit hole of having sex as some sort of punishment for himself, you know? he’d spend his nights in jail cells for drug abuse and underage drinking because his parents couldn’t care less about picking him up.” he sighs. “couldn’t believe it when i saw him here, after two years. he won’t even look me in the eye. he’s … shrunk so much, it’s strange. looks like a skeleton of what he used to be.”

they sit in silence after that, jungkook cracking his knuckles every once in awhile. bambam stares at his half-eaten orange and stands up, moving to throw it away. jungkook follows him.

as they stand just outside of the dining room door, bambam asks, “why are you here, jungkook?”

the other teenager just looks down, red painting his cheeks.

/

bambam goes out to have a smoke after talking with jungkook. he had expected serenity, or maybe his two smoking friends sitting on the plastic lawn chairs — instead he sees yugyeom, curled up in foetal position, broken sobs echoing throughout the small enclosure.

there’s a moment of silence as bambam stares at the younger man, wondering what to do. he finds his body immediately backtracking into the dining room and taking a glass of water, before returning to yugyeom. he helps him sit up, noticing the shaking hands and swollen eyes.

they don’t say anything, just sitting there in silence, yugyeom leaning on bambam’s shoulder and taking small sips from his water.

when the shaking and the cries and the tears stop, yugyeom reaches into his back-pocket and brings out a pen. on the palm of his hands, he writes in jagged handwriting, _thank you._

bambam offers him a genuine smile in return.

/

bambam hasn’t seen jinyoung since the fight between him and jackson. he wonders about the other man sometimes as he sits in the living room, listening to mark and jackson bicker, or to hoseok and yoongi drone on about philosophy, or to jungkook excitedly telling him about the painting he made in art therapy, or to yugyeom’s silence.

he asks about it one day when him and jackson are alone on the sofa, both staring blankly at the tv.

“left for awhile,” jackson says, shaking his head, “but he’ll be back. he always comes back.”

“what do you mean?”

jackson leans back into the sofa’s cushion and aimlessly plays with a loose string on a pillow. “jinyoung … he’s constantly in and out of this place. has been for the past three years.”

“what for?”

jackson’s smile twists into a frown. “jinyoung is a bad person.”

“you’re being cryptic again.”

“no i’m not — jinyoung is just a bad person.”

they sit in silence after that, until namjoon calls them for lunch.

/

jinyoung does come back, after two more days. he looks more tired than the first time bambam had seen him, has dark circles painted under his eyes. he sits down wordlessly next to bambam in the dining room.

“well, look what the cat dragged in,” yoongi drawls, catching the attention of the others at the table.

“fuck off,” jinyoung says, bringing a piece of pasta to his mouth and chewing it slowly, “i don’t want to be here.”

“nor do any of us,” bambam finds himself saying, turning to look at jinyoung. the other man does the same, calculating eyes taking in the facial features of the teenager.

“you guys are all so vague all the time,” jungkook says after a few seconds, frowning as he plays with his hands. bambam can hear him tapping his foot underneath the table. “i don’t understand the point.”

jackson starts to laugh after that, but bambam can’t take his eyes off of the older man sitting next to him. greasy hair, high cheekbones, and dark eyes; a hurricane in the form of a human.

/

jinyoung finds him that night, curled up on an armchair in the living room. he sits down on the footrest and stares at him, eyes sharp.

“what do you want?” bambam asks after a minute, putting his book down and raising his eyebrows. “you can’t just stare at me for all of eternity.”

it’s silent for a couple more seconds as the two gaze at each other. eventually, jinyoung says, “i was just wondering if you wanted to have a cigarette with me.”

bambam stretches his arms, “well, usually i wait for hoseok and yoongi—“

the other man is already gone by the time he gets to _and,_ disappearing through the doorway and down the hallway. bambam sighs and follows him, ignoring jackson’s sharp look, making his way down the hallway before turning into the dining room. he can see jinyoung’s outline standing on the balcony and moves to slide open the door, shutting it behind him as he stands in the crisp air.

a cigarette is offered to him, lit by a match with a matchbox. bambam wonders where he’d got it from.

“you shouldn’t listen to jackson,” the older man says after awhile, still staring at bambam, “you really shouldn’t. his thoughts are all twisted from paranoia.”

“and your words aren’t?” bambam says, leaning against the railing. “you haven’t exactly made the best impression.”

“i’m just here for depression.” jinyoung moves to join him at the railing, puffing smoke from his mouth. “jackson’s here for schizophrenia. there’s a big difference.”

“jackson says you’re a bad person.”

“jackson doesn’t know what the fuck he’s talking about.”

they continue to stand there in silence until the cigarettes are nothing but filters to join the ashtray. bambam puts his arms out and pushes himself off the railing, looking at jinyoung for a moment before leaving, not bothering to slide the door shut behind him.

he wanders into jimin’s room after that, waits for him on his bed, shirtless. hours pass and the other man eventually wanders in, eyebrows raising.

“fuck me,” bambam says breathily. jimin grins.

**Author's Note:**

> i love you all


End file.
